The city before him was extremely prosperous—dense buildings extending beyond the horizon.

  But what lay hidden beneath that prosperity was hard to say. When Xia Li was in college, he'd been exposed to graffiti art.

  Beyond self-expression and breaking conventions, graffiti art had another deeper meaning.

  The dirtier and more chaotic the environment, the more it needed heavy colors to conceal it.

  Thus the light pollution and holographic images—far worse than Lingguang City by countless times—made Xia Li's head spin.

  Walking down the street with Liu Sheng Qianzao.

  Xia Li saw gang patrols and fierce-looking beggars.

  There were girls dressed as nuns on street corners preaching and distributing suspicious liquids to passersby.

  There were children hiding in old buildings, sizing up other pedestrians with the eyes of predators.

  There were even seemingly quiet, demure girls who proactively approached Xia Li to sell themselves, hoping to fetch a high price.

  Chaos, noise, disorder...

  Yet it all seemed to contain some nameless pattern that Xia Li couldn't articulate—everyone following that unnamed rule to barely maintain peace.

  Garish neon signs and deafening advertisements polluted Xia Li's cognition, making him want to smash things.

  "So noisy..."

  Just walking down the street was almost unbearable.

  "You need to get used to this environment. At first, people were very satisfied with rich elements crammed into narrow spaces, thinking it could fill their spiritual emptiness..."

  "People became obsessed with filling everything they saw and heard, keeping their minds from quieting down. That way they could achieve pleasure that numbed everything."

  "Just now it's probably too late for regret."

  Liu Sheng Qianzao told Xia Li to adapt to this chaos, but he was destined never to adapt.

  "We've stepped onto the wrong path... The future shouldn't be like this."

  Xia Li couldn't help but sigh. If it were just a pure technological explosion, human civilization shouldn't have come to this.

  But spiritual energy and technology advancing simultaneously created this chaotic, disordered, yet strangely rational spectacle.

  In comparison, Lingguang City's Upper City was incredibly orderly—just an ordinary future city.

  "Then do you like this era even a tiny bit?"

  Liu Sheng Qianzao had learned from Ke Xiao that Xia Li was from five hundred years ago.

  She looked at his profile, but the only emotion in his eyes was impatience.

  Just then, a light rain began to fall. The rainwater reflected the lights—different colored points of light merging and interweaving, making the surroundings truly become a sea of light.

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  People seemed to transform into suffering pilgrims in a sea of light.

  Suddenly...

  All advertisements stopped, leaving only one broadcast.

  "Good evening! Still alive, you poor ghosts? Time to pay taxes!"

  "Today's tax rate is... 0.2 standard spirit stone units, or 35 hash values!"

  "Begin paying taxes!"

  The broadcast wasn't in Xia Li's usual language, but Heaven Chip could translate with minimal delay, so cross-language communication wasn't a problem.

  Xia Li looked questioningly at Liu Sheng Qianzao.

  "What tax? How do you pay it?"

  "I'll tell you later. In a moment, either release spiritual energy or use your brain to run data—your choice."

  "Run what data? I..."

  Before Xia Li finished, Heaven Chip directly sent a notification.

  [Open frequency computational request detected. Do you agree to compute this data?]

  [Agree]

  After agreeing, Xia Li felt a massive surge of data flood into his mind. Heaven Chip began mobilizing his brainpower for computation. Endless characters streamed through his consciousness...

  His head hurt so much!!

  "What the hell is this..."

  "Damn, damn, damn!!"

  Xia Li clutched his head and swore uncontrollably. He felt like someone was shaking his brain violently in their hands.

  Fortunately, the sensation came quickly and left quickly.

  After the headache subsided, Xia Li clutched his head and breathed, noticing the surrounding pedestrians were looking at him with aggressive eyes.

  As if...

  They were appraising an object.

  "Wait, are you that short on spiritual energy? Only poor ghosts use computing power to pay taxes. It really damages your brain."

  "How the hell was I supposed to know?"

  This was Xia Li's first time paying taxes. He really didn't know these rules. Plus, out of curiosity, he'd wanted to see how computing power tax worked.

  He hadn't expected the process to be so painful.

  "Everyone, my friend here is visiting for the first time. He doesn't know the rules here. He's definitely not a poor ghost."

  "Anyone who tries anything—be ready to become his asset. This friend of mine is quite twisted!"

  Liu Sheng Qianzao swept her gaze over the surrounding pedestrians. Xia Li's use of computing power for tax payment had essentially announced he was a weakling who could be bullied.

  "What are you looking at? Get lost!"

  Xia Li raised his right prosthetic arm high and fired a Dragon Breath bullet into the sky.

  The instantly dispersing high-temperature flames vaporized the rain, forming scalding steam swirling above Xia Li's head.

  The pedestrians quickly departed.

  Anyone who could install that thing in their prosthetic wasn't a poor ghost—at minimum, they had thousand-level assets.

  "Feeling better?"

  Seeing the pedestrians leave, Liu Sheng Qianzao finally steadied Xia Li. But her eyes held no concern—rather a hint of mockery.

  "You did that on purpose, didn't you? You could have told me not to use computing power to pay taxes!"

  "Sort of. But this was the fastest way to make you understand the rules here. Compared to explaining verbally, experiencing it yourself is more real, isn't it?"

  "Tch..."

  Xia Li couldn't help clicking his tongue. This lesson had indeed made him instantly understand so much. Once you became a poor ghost, you were meat that everyone wanted to take a bite of.

  "So what tax was that just now?"

  "Survival tax. Making spirit stones here is easy, but accordingly... you have to pay taxes to stay here. This is only the outer ring of Lower City."

  "The closer to the inner ring, the higher the tax rate. Upper City's rate is terrifying—and you need proof of assets just to go there."

  "Everything really does revolve around money!"

  Xia Li was amazed. So this was a city under Corporate Union control? Truly the poor's hell.

  Even if others didn't kill you, eventually you'd be unable to afford spirit stones and have your brain fried by that damned computing power tax.

  "Also Xia Li, here there's another standard for measuring combat power besides conventional cultivation strength and armament level."

  "It's called Asset Tier. Through Asset Tier, you can directly receive ability amplification from the Heavenly Dao Computer."

  Liu Sheng Qianzao continued explaining. Hearing this, Xia Li was no longer surprised—it just seemed fitting.

  "So you directly pay spirit stones for New Tokyo's Heavenly Dao Computer to give you special treatment?"

  "Yes. Ten-thousand tier is the activation threshold—minimum one thousand spirit stones activation fee. Usable on demand throughout the entire archipelago except a few locations."

  "Damn capitalists!"

  Xia Li instantly understood how terrifying this rule was. When two people were dueling, they'd definitely activate this feature to win.

  Regardless of who won or lost, spirit stones would evaporate massively.

  If you didn't use it, your enemy would.

  So ultimately, Corporate Union was always the real winner.